Visa buys stake in Jack Dorsey's company, Square
NEW YORK - Visa is now a major shareholder in Square (SQ), the mobile payment services company co-founded and led by Jack Dorsey.
Shares of Square rose more than 9 percent, to $9.37, in early trading.
Visa snapped up a nearly 10 percent interest in Square, according to a regulatory filing. That would make it the San Francisco company's second-biggest shareholder, according to that data research firm FactSet.
Visa has been working on payment services technology of its own including Visa payWave, which allows users to pass a card over a terminal to record a payment.
Square went public in November. The Square device plugs into smartphones or tablets, so credit cards can be accepted almost anywhere.
Dorsey, a co-founder of Square, is also co-founder and CEO of Twitter Inc.